Shots From The Studio #34

Let’s get lazy.

   So I’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons for nearly 40 years. I’ve been a player a lot of the time and I’ve been a Dungeon Master a lot of the time. One of my current ongoing games is a weekly one where we switch DM’ing duties every 9 to 12 months depending on when the campaign wraps. And the time for me to run the next campaign again has arrived. So I did what all DMs do I started to prepare. But it seems there are more restraints on my free time than ever before. So how could I make preparing for a year long campaign easier on my schedule and my anxiety levels? That’s where Sly Flourish’s Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master comes in.

   Written and self published in 2018 by Michael E. Shea The Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master is, essentially, a self help book for DM’s. What it is not is a “how to” guide for people just learning how to run a tabletop role playing game. It’s designed for people who have at least some experience running TTRPGs. And while the advice could easily be recalibrated for any game it was definitely written with 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons firmly in mind.

   The Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master covers everything from your players building their party to running combat encounters to designing adventures and entire campaigns all with a focus on keeping preparations to a minimum. It not only really dives into trimming the fat of game prep but also tips to make the game itself run smoother and be more entertaining for both the players and the DM. It is also designed for this tips and tricks to be modular. You can pick and choose between which ones will be useful to your game and which ones won’t.

   The book is a quick read at 94 pages or in my case a quick listen at just under 3.5 hours for the audio book. The print version has great art throughout by Pedro Potier and a wonderful cover by Jack Kaiser. Both  versions also come with a link to free PDFs of the books several DM Checklists. The checklists were one of my favorite inclusions. I have printed these out and included them in my DM binder to go over as I work on the next weeks session.

   All in all I found this book both easy to understand and full of very valuable ideas and information. Whether you’ve been running games for a couple of months or a couple of decades I think DMs of all levels will find useful information to make game prep quicker, more efficient and less stressful.